mcgrath



(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 1.

J. MeGRATH & E. MANISTY.

- I APPARATUS FOR SGUTOHING FLAX, &e.. No. 398,171. I Patented Feb. 19,1889.

N, PETERS, Fllotciilhographcr, Wawhinglom D, c.

(No-Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

J. MQGRATH 82; E. MANIS-TY.

APPARATUS FOR SCUTUHING FLAX, 8w.

No. 398,171. Patentedlreb. 19, 189.

(No Model.) S'Sheets-Sheet J. MGGR-ATH & E. MANISTY.

APPARATUS FOB SGUTGHING FLAX, &c. No. 398,171. 1 Patented Feb. 19, 1889.

1%2/6722024: @7027; w araz flwarel UNITED 8TATES P TENT OFFICE.

.IOIIN MCGRATH, OF LARAGII, COUNTY OF MONAGIIAN, AND EDIVARD MAN- ISTY, OF DUNDALK, COUNTY OF LOUTII, IRELAND.

APPARATUS FOR SCUTCHING FLAX, 80C.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 398,171, dated February 19, 1889.

Application filed October 13, 1887. Serial No. 252,252. (No model.) Patented in England $eptember 19, 1887,1l0.12,693; in France June 80,1888, No. 191,538, and in Belgium July 5, 1888,110. 82,457.

To (LZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, JOHN MCGRATH and EDWARD MANISTY, subjects of the Queen of Great Britain, residing, respectively, at Laragh, County Monaghan, Ireland, and at Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Apparatus,

for Scutching Flax, &c., (for which we have obtained Letters Patent in Great Britain, No. 12,693, dated September 19,1887; France, No. 191,538, dated June 30,1888, and Belgium, No. 82,457, dated July 5, 1888,) of which the following is a specification.

Our invention relates to apparatus for scutching, haekling, or similarly treating flax and other fibrous materials in a continuous manner, and embraces means of automatically taking hold of the material by traveling chains or cords as it is fed continuously, and thus firmly grasping about half the length of the stems, while the other half hangs freely downward, causing the material thus grasped to travel along an inclined guide, while the free parts are acted on throughout their length by revolving scutches, and finally releasing the parts that were grasped, so that they in their turn can, be scutched, while the parts already scutched are similarly grasped and moved.

The accompanying drawings represent so much of a scutching or hackling machine as is necessary to explain our invention.

Figure l is a side view, Fig. 2 is an end view, and Fig. 3 is a plan, of the machine. The other figures, drawn to an enlarged scale, are: Fig. 4, a part side view, and Fig. 5 a part plan, showing the arrangement of the chains at the entering end of the inclined guide. Figs. 6, 7, 8, and 9 are part transverse sections on the lines .2, .2 .2 and 5 respectively, of Fig. 5.

In bearings in a suitable framing are journaled the shafts of two scutching-drums, H, which are driven at considerable speed in opposite directions, as indicated by the arrows h. These drums may be cylindrical or of equal diameter throughout; but we prefer to make them taper, as shown, so that at the entering or right-hand end, where the scutches act first on the fibrous material, breaking the woody substance of the stems, they have greater speed than they have at the leaving end, where they act chiefly for brushing or clearing off the woody fragments. In the upper part of the framing are mounted two pairs of chainwheels, one pair, A, below and a little to the one side of the otherpair, B. These are driven in opposite directions, as indicated by the ar rows a b, at a relatively slow speed-that is to say, for flax,for example, the scutch-drums H should revolve from thirty to forty times faster than the chain -wheels A B; but this proportion may be varied according to the nature of the material operated upon. By the chain-wheels A B four endless chains, 1, 2, 3, and 4, are caused to travel down an inclined carrier-rail, E, under a guide-pulley, F, up an inclined rail, E, around chain-wheels A B at the left-hand end of the machine, two of the chains-namely, those from the wheels A Abeing led by guide-pulleys a a and a tension-pulley, a, obliquely away and back in a horizontal plane, and the other two chains from B B being led under a tension-pulley, Z), at the top of the machine. A star-wheel, D, is so arranged, as shown more clearly in Figs. -1 and 5, that its teeth or rays penetrate between two of the chains 2 and 3 just beyond a point where these chains cross each other, one above the other, as shown in Fig. 5, and before the four chains reach the beginning of the inclined rail E. This star-wheel is free to revolve, being driven by the friction of the chains that bear against its sides.

A little above the front edge of the carrierrail E, and parallel to it, as shown in Fig. 9, is fixed a skid-rail, C, leaving between its lower edge and the upper face of the rail E a narrow space not wide enough to allow any of the chains to pass through it.

To more definitely explain the arrangement of the endless chains, it may be stated that the peripheries of the Wheels A overlap the peripheries of the wheels B, and the chains 1 and 3 from the wheels A and the chains 2 and a from the wheels B travel together down the first inclined railor guide, E, the four chains passing under the guide-pulley F and then up the inclined rail or guide E, the chains 1 and 3 passing about the wheels A, while the chains 2 and 4; pass about the wheels B. The chains 1 and 3 from the wheels A 5 are guided obliquely away around pulleys c (t a back to the wheels A, so. that the said chains are out of the way of the boaters on the drums II. The four chains 1, 2, 3, and at, passing from'the pulleys A l3that is to say,

two of said chains, 1 and 3, from pulley A and two, 2 and 1, from the other pulley, l3 and the material. being fed in between the chains passing around pulley l3 and those passing around pulley A, it will assume the I 5 position shown in Fig. (3, by reason of the chains from said pulleys being carried past each other by the alternating overlapping peripheries of said pulleys onwhich the chains are carried. After passing between the pulleys the chains 2 and 3 are crossed and carried upon opposite sides of the starwheel D, and in effecting this the flax is brought into the position shown in Fig. '7, in which it will be noticed the relative positions of the chains 1 and l are the same as in Fig.

(1, while the chains 2 and 3 have simply assumed the opposite relative positions ensuing from their crossing caused by the intervention of the star-wheel. By now bringing all four chains into substantially the same horizontal plane, which is the position they natu rally tend to assume after passing the starwheol D, owing to the guidance of pulley F, the overlapped loop of fiber are formed as 3 5 shown in Fig. 8, forming the triple strand between chains 1 and 3 and chains 2 and 4. The triple strand thus formed is then drawn under the edge of the skid-rail C, as shown in Fig.

9. \Vhile nearly half the length of the fibrous 4o material is thus grasped, there hangs from between the chains 2 and a somewhat more than hall the length of fibrous material free, which, as the chains move along the incline E downward, is caught between the scutch- 5 drums ll and acted on by their scutches or beaters first at the lower end and then at parts gradually higher and higher until the lowest part of the incline is reached. The whole length of free fibers being thus seutehed,it is again acted on as the chains ascend the slope E. At the left-hand end of the machine the chains are made to alter their relative posi' tions in an inverted order by simply crossing chains .2 and 3 after they leave the skid-rail C and carrying them to the pulleys A B, re-

specti vcly, so as to release the fibers from their entan glemen t,and the fibers, havi n g one partabout on ehalf of their length-scutched, are delivered from l'retween the chain-wheels A B. By feeding the fibrous stems'in an inverted position into the machine again at its right-hand end, or into another similar machine, so that the scutched part of their length is grasped by the chains, while the part hitherto unscutched hangs free, the scutching of the whole length can be completed.

The scutches or boaters on the drums It may have plain edges or edges waved, serrated, or

indented, according to the character of the material on which they have to operate. Throughout half the length of the drums the boaters may be of one pattern for breaking, and throughout the other half they may be of a different pattern suited for brushing oil? the woody fragments from the fibers.

Although we have described chains for forming and holding the loops of fibrous material, cords or other flexible bands or straps might be used. Practically for flax and similar materials chains are found to be most servieeable.

The guide-pulley I? has the outside grooves of less diameter than the two intermediate grooves, so that said pulley can be set down deeper between the drums ll than if all the grooves were of the same diamei er.

\Ve have not shown in the drawings means of driving the scutching-drums H or the ehainwheels A B, as the gearing for that purpose forms no part of our invention. They may be driven independently from any con 'venient motor, or they may be connected by any suitable gear to give them the relative speeds approximately that we have mentioned above.

Having thus-described the nature of our invention and the best means we know of carrying it out in practice, we claim- 1. In a machine for scutching, hackling, or similarly treating flax and other fibrous material, in combination with a guide inclined first downward, then upward, along which the grasped parts of the fibrous material are led, a pair of scutching-drums tapered from a larger diameter at the entering end to a smaller diameter at the leaving end, substantially as and for the purpose herein set forth.

2. In a machine for scutching o'r hackling fiax and other fibrous material, the combination, with the driving and guide wheels and the stationary guide, of the four traveling chains, one crossing another, and the star- IOC .IIO

wheel and skid-rail for ettecting and maintaining said position of the chains, all operat ing to grasp and hold the upper ends of the fiber while the lower portions are bein operated on, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof we have signed our names to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, this 24th day of September, A. I). 1887.

JOHN MUGPATI'I. EDlVAR-D HA). TY.

Witnesses:

RICHARD GRAY, ALEXANDER McALEsTER. 

